"Does the Sicilian grandmother respond to the magic of the south?"
When she drew near to the end of this letter Hermione hesitated.
"He--there's something," she said, "that is too kind to me. I don't think
I'll read it."
"Don't," said Delarey. "But it can't be too kind."
She saw the postscript and smiled.
"And quite at the end there's an allusion to you."
"Is there?"
"I must read that."
And she read it.
"He needn't be afraid of the grandmother's not responding, need he,
Maurice?"
"No," he said, smiling too. "But is that it, do you think? Why should it
be? Who wouldn't love this place?"
And he went to the open door and looked out towards the sea.
"Who wouldn't?" he repeated.
"Oh, I have met an Englishman who was angry with Etna for being the shape
it is."
"What an ass!"
"I thought so, too. But, seriously, I expect the grandmother has
something to say in that matter of your feeling already, as if you
belonged here."
"Perhaps."
He was still looking towards the distant sea far down below them.
"Is that an island?" he asked.
"Where?" said Hermione, getting up and coming towards him. "Oh, that--no,
it is a promontory, but it's almost surrounded by the sea. There is only
a narrow ledge of rock, like a wall, connecting it with the main-land,
and in the rock there's a sort of natural tunnel through which the sea
flows. I've sometimes been to picnic there. On the plateau hidden among
the trees there's a ruined house. I have spent many hours reading and
writing in it. They call it, in Marechiaro, Casa delle Sirene--the house
of the sirens."
"Questo vino è bello e fino," cried Gaspare's voice outside.
"A Brindisi!" said Hermione. "Gaspare's treating the boys. Questo
vino--oh, how glorious to be here in Sicily!"
She put her arm through Delarey's, and drew him out onto the terrace.
Gaspare, Lucrezia, Sebastiano, and the three boys stood there with
glasses of red wine in their hands raised high above their heads.
"Questo vino è bello e fino,
È portato da Castel Perini,
Faccio brindisi alla Signora Ermini," continued Gaspare, joyously, and with an obvious pride in his poetical
powers.
They all drank simultaneously, Lucrezia spluttering a little out of
shyness.
"Monte Amato, Gaspare, not Castel Perini. But that doesn't rhyme, eh?
Bravo! But we must drink, too."